Plenty of people think the Bible is wrong, about many things. Some of these people claim to be followers of Jesus. There are many who, while they do not like to say the Bible is wrong, do feel the Bible, regrettably, says many scientifically and politically unhappy things, and that it would be best for us to pass over those in silence and benign neglect. Many of these people also claim to be followers of Jesus. There are also those who read the Bible, regularly, with thought, discipline, and prayer. Beloved, a follower of Jesus Christ is a follower of, a believer in, the Word of God.

“Ugh! Well, I don’t like that part of the Bible!” “That can’t be right!” There are many parts of the Bible that cause me pain to read. I feel the sorrow, the grief; I lament the stupidity and the arrogance, and I am all too acquainted with all those things in me. There is much in the Bible that I do not understand—because what I read there is difficult to comprehend and deeply mysterious, also because I do not understand why some things are even in the Bible: why do we have to hear about that? Why do all those people have to die? What’s so bad about doing this or that? Does it matter so much? Does it really matter that much to God?

Thus, we cultured, urbane, enlightened, sensitive citizens of the world judge the Bible. Thomas Jefferson did: he liked some parts but other parts not so much, so, for his Bible, he cut out what he thought was unlikely. He judged the Bible and found it wanting, though a very good resource for pondering ethics: our relations with our fellow human beings. Academic theologians especially, schooled in the current dogma of the academy, sociopolitical dogma, are engaged in an ambitious project to remake the Bible—it’s interpretation, anyway—after the image of an enlightened, rich humanism, with God blessing whatever an enlightened humanist sincerely believes any God worthy the name ought to be blessing. They judge the Bible and find it wanting. Of course, they wouldn’t put it quite so plainly as that.

Why should we get so excited one way or the other, anyway? I mean, this Bible, these words, they’re just words on a page, written by patriarchal, bloody men living in a backwards culture thousands of years ago. There’s evolution, you know! We have evolved, and we are evolving. Why not God, too: a God who, like us, becomes inevitably, necessarily, so reasonably and logically wiser, kinder, more welcoming and tolerant. Why, a God who didn’t evolve would simply be inhuman!

I suppose it all sounds very good, even desirable. Beloved, temptation, to be really, truly temptation, must have a seeming goodness about it. It must seem desirable in some sense. No one is tempted by something in which they have no interest. No one is tempted by what they don’t care about.

When the church, or those who speak for the church, judge the Bible, we know that we are in hard times. Beloved, the Bible judges us. God’s Word judges us. We are not the standard. Our values, somebody’s values, whoever’s values, are not the standard. God’s Word is the standard. By that standard, we have all fallen short. In consequence, all of us are now subject to judgment, God’s judgment. God’s Word lays everything open to view, like an MRI, an X-ray, like a scalpel. If you experience discomfort when reading Scripture—I hope you do, sometimes! —it may be because here is something in you that God’s Word is laying open to your view, laying it open not as you would want it presented, understood, or excused, but as God is telling you to look at it, because it is how God sees it. We can’t read Scripture saying, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . .”

God’s Word “judges the desires and thoughts of man’s heart” (4:12). Nothing is hidden from God. God’s Word is meant to assure us of that truth. God’s Word reveals to us what God wants us to see in our own conduct. One of the major factors for not believing in God, not wanting to believe in God, and for not making worship, church, a habit—stupid Christians! boring church!—is the desire to believe that we will not have to give an account of ourselves, to anyone. We live, we die, whatever. God’s Word is very plain, all too plain, that “it is to Him that we must all give an account of ourselves” (4:13). We can give that account with Christ at our side, or not. Have Christ at your side. I urge you to urge others to have Christ at their side.

What is it to give an account of ourselves with Christ at our side? It is to lie prostrate with our face in the dust, eyes wet with stinging tears, gesturing to Jesus, as much as to say, Lord, Lord! It is to have Jesus look from you to the Father and say, Father, forgive. And whatever the well-beloved Son asks of his Father, the Father will grant. To have Christ at your side, with you, in you, is to be forgiven, sins covered, failures pardoned, ugliness passed over. To have Christ at your side is to enter, entirely undeservedly, into the joy of God, eternally.

And not to have Christ at your side? For all must give an account. Must—there will be no exceptions. “Oh, God . . . I mean—Jesus! You actually exist?” I never loved you. I never knew you, never served you. I was a good person, though! In my heart, I was, anyway, mostly. My friends said I was, sometimes. I believed what I was supposed to believe, did what I was supposed to do . . . I mean, come on! Look at all I had to deal with! So what if I did some stuff some old book nobody reads said I shouldn’t be doing? I know what’s best for me! Nobody can tell me how to live my life! How was I to know it was Your Word? Cut me some slack, man!

Defiance, self-righteousness, reliance upon human standards—shifting, changing, fickle fashions of human standards—it doesn’t end well. We all fall short; all have sinned—except for one, one man, one Savior, one Lord, in whom we can have faith: into whose hands we can entrust our lives.

One of the biggest problems of our age was one of the biggest problems of the early church—for that matter, it has been one of the biggest problems since Adam and Eve walked hand in hand up to the tree. That problem is the twisting of the faith. Whenever the faith is twisted, it is always in someone’s interest—who benefits from this or that twist? One of the key messages of all the epistles is to hold firmly to the received faith, the untwisted faith given to the church by the apostles themselves, who received it from Jesus himself. When the preacher of Hebrews urges those listening to “hold firmly to the faith we profess” (4:14), this is part of what he means: keep the faith, the faith given you by the apostles, by Jesus, the Word of God.

If the Bible is not reliable, not truly the Word of God, if the Bible is wrong about anything having to do with our salvation and the way of faithful walking through this minefield of earthly life, then we have no reliable guide. Our will is not a reliable guide. Our wisdom is not a reliable guide. Our ingenuity is not a reliable guide. Our strength is not a reliable guide. Our love is not a reliable guide. The Bible is our reliable guide. The Bible teaches the faith. As we learn faith, we can grow in faith, and as we grow in faith, we turn more and more to Jesus, who is our hope, our life, our light. Hold firmly to the received faith, the faith we profess, here at Bethel.

Jesus is our Great High Priest. And we think, oh, that’s nice. Our what, now? For those who grew up Catholic, that term or title may mean more to you than to the rest of us. I hope it does, anyway. What the Bible tells us about a priest is that he is appointed by God for this purpose. The High Priest is the only one who can enter into the Most Holy Place, into the presence of God—the only one!

The priest can do this because he has been purified and is pure. The Great High Priest is our anchor within the veil. What does the priest do there? The priest prays, prays in the presence of God, thanking God, and speaking to God on behalf of those who are not pure. The priest makes the sacrifice that atones for our sins. He offers the life in place of the offender’s life, whereby we are cleansed, restored, forgiven. Jesus is our Great High Priest—pure, sacrifice, praying—for what, for who? For us! For you! Father, strengthen. Father, comfort. Father, forgive. Father, Bless. And whatever the Son, the Great High Priest, asks of his Father, the Father grants, not grudgingly but gladly. Jesus is our anchor within the veil: the ship of our lives gets tossed this way and that, takes on water, but our anchor holds, our anchor in the presence of God holds, and we are held: held in prayer, held in grace, held in love.

This priest, our priest, sympathizes with us. He knows how hellish it can be to be tangled in temptation, in every way we are. Tangled in gluttony—that isn’t just making a pig of yourself at the table. Gluttony is indulging the temptation to put yourself first, the temptation to have no concern or consideration for others—Me first! Sloth—this is not laziness like Saturday morning in your pjs, but utter lack of motivation, apathy—not caring: so what if others need help and I do nothing? What are they to me? Who was it that asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The temptation to greed, to hoard, that inordinate desire for more, more for you, all for you, to gather and never to give. Envy—not being content with what you have (what God has given you); jealousy, resentment, self-pity, which is not so very distant from the temptation to Pride: that unrealistic valuation of one’s own merits, a lack of humility, a lack of meekness. Well, who wants to be meek? What did that ever do for anybody? Then the temptation to Anger—for the wrong reasons in the wrong way at the wrong time. Oh, there is righteous anger, wrath, which is never irrational nor unrestrained, but we don’t often apply anger in this way; no, more often, so often, too often, anger applies us. Last of all, but not least, that temptation we know but act as if we do not, the one we don’t talk about, though we will readily talk about all the others: Lust, that sticky temptation to take and to make others objects for our pleasure, that callous disregard, that total absence of love, compassion, concern, and sympathy.

Well, thank God I’m not affected by any of those! Everyone is affected, beloved—you know this, you see this, you have experienced it too many times in your own lives, and you rightly grieve it. Jesus was affected, by all these temptations: how much more, knowing his own power! The difference is this: Jesus did not sin. It wasn’t easy for Jesus—read Scripture and hear how often he struggled. For temptation to be temptation, it can’t be easy to turn away.

Beloved, know this: temptation is not sin. Sin is doing as temptation bids. Temptation is expert at making the path seem smooth, but it’s slick: it’s the way into a trap. To avoid the trap, learn to recognize the trap. And pray. And grow in God’s Word. Read God’s Word. Learn God’s Word. Believe God’s word. Let Him judge you, for blessing and for life. Scripture will not be of much benefit to you if you never pick it up and try to find out what’s in here. Beloved, I wonder if Jesus isn’t also praying to his Father on our behalf that we would pick up these Bibles of ours and use them, use God’s Word.

All have fallen short; all have sinned; all must give an account of themselves—including you, including me. Have Jesus with you. Have confidence. Don’t be afraid. You must give an account. Draw near the throne; let us draw near the throne, “where there is grace” (4:16). There is judgment, and there is grace. In Christ, God’s judgment upon us is grace: God decides upon grace, in Christ. God’s throne, for those in Christ, is not a throne of judgment but of mercy and grace, of invitation and of love. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to our Savior, Lord, and friend, Jesus. Thanks be to the Holy Spirit, blessing us with the confidence, the faith, the hope, and the love of Christ.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.